No Mistakes, Just EV Alternatives

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[00:00:17] Hello everyone and welcome to Kilowatt, a Podcast about electric vehicles, renewable energy, autonomous driving and much, much more.

[00:00:47] My name is Bodhi and I am your host and on today's episode we have more Alison Sheridan. I promised you Pod Week or Pod Feet Week last week and yeah. Thing is, life is very busy and I thought it would get a little less busy by now but it's not. I'm still very busy. So this episode was supposed to go out on Friday and it is now Sunday at 3 o'clock in the afternoon and I'm finally getting it out.

[00:01:17] And it's not out, it's not late because the content wasn't already recorded. Because I actually recorded with Alison back in February. This is late because I wanted to add Tesla's delivery numbers and I'm just now having time to sit down and actually do the recording. So yeah, it's just been, it's been a super busy couple months.

[00:01:44] A couple of the things that I'm doing have definite end dates by the end of April. So I'm hoping that time kind of frees up a little bit. So yeah. So let's start off with Tesla's delivery numbers and I want to give a little historical data on this. So if we start with Q1 2023, right, and we're just talking delivery numbers, we're not talking production numbers here.

[00:02:08] In Q1 2023, Tesla delivered just under 423,000 vehicles. Total deliveries just under 423,000. So not too bad. In Q1 2024, so last year, Tesla delivered just under 387,000 vehicles. So we're looking at about a 36,000 vehicle decrease year over year.

[00:02:37] Now, when we go to Q1 2025, we can see that Tesla delivered just under 337,000 vehicles. And that is a 50,000 vehicle decrease from Q1 2024. And they delivered 86,000 fewer vehicles than they did in 2023. So we're definitely seeing that Q1 that there's a slump.

[00:03:06] And this number fell short of what analysts' expectations were, which they thought the company would deliver between 360,000 and 370,000 units during Q1. Now, normally I would talk about production numbers. I'm not going to do that this time because I really want to talk more about the potential reasons why. Starting off, we had a Model Y refresh. During the refresh, production lines were down at all four factories.

[00:03:34] And, you know, they're just not delivering as many of the world's most popular car. Or at one point in time, it was the world's most popular car. They just weren't delivering as many because the production was down. And then we have the market's impact.

[00:03:47] Tesla stocks experienced a lot of volatility for a variety of different reasons, not, you know, the least of which is Elon's involvement in the government, which includes his behavior and comments that he's made while in that role as an advisor to the Trump presidency. And then his behavior outside of that as well has caused some people to kind of swear off the brand.

[00:04:17] And there's been protests and all that stuff. We don't need to rehash that. You all know what's going on there. But that's led to some people who may have wanted to buy an electric vehicle who hadn't already owned one to look at other companies. You know, you have the Chinese car companies that we talked about. You also have Stellantis in Europe has a lot of really good options. Obviously, you know, those Chinese companies are operating Europe as well.

[00:04:45] And then here in North America, we have, you know, the F-150 Lightning, the Ford Mach-E, the Chevy Equinox, Chevy Silverado pickup truck. The Cadillac Lyric is getting really good numbers. So there's a lot of options is what I'm saying for people who would like to buy a car that is not a Tesla. And as a matter of fact, it's kind of interesting.

[00:05:06] I didn't mean for this to lean into this, but Allison and I on this week's episode, we're actually going to discuss some of the vehicles that she would consider if she was in the market for an EV, which she's not. So this is a thought experiment. But we'll get to that here in just a moment. I just want to briefly mention the two other North American EV companies, which are Rivian and Lucid. And it's interesting because Rivian had a really great quarter Q4 2024.

[00:05:32] It was their first profitable quarter, which is amazing for the company and congratulations to them. They maybe got ahead of their skis a little bit because in Q1 2025, they manufactured over 14,000 vehicles, right? Which is, you know, pretty good for them. But they only delivered 8,640 vehicles.

[00:05:57] And during the same time last year, Q1 2024, they delivered 13,588 vehicles. So, you know, this isn't a Tesla only issue. There could be other factors, which also include tariffs, although that's not going to affect last quarter's delivery numbers.

[00:06:20] That's definitely going to affect Q2's delivery numbers if tariffs are continuing to be an issue that long into Q2. So it's something we're going to need to keep an eye on. Interestingly enough, Lucid, they actually had a good quarter for Lucid. They delivered 3,109 vehicles in the first quarter, which is a 28% increase year over year for the company.

[00:06:51] This, it's so weird, right? Because, you know, the Saudi Wealth Fund owns a large percentage of Lucid. They're building a factory in Saudi Arabia to build Lucid vehicles. And they're only building 3,000 vehicles a quarter. And that's an increase. So, I mean, congratulations to the Lucid team.

[00:07:15] But building a second factory on another continent really feels premature at the moment with that low of numbers when it comes to those vehicles. But back to Tesla. And I think many of you know I'm not an apologist for Tesla when I think they're doing something stupid or Elon's doing something stupid. I definitely point it out. Not political stuff, but when it comes to company moves and things like that.

[00:07:46] I see a lot of people saying, oh, well, Tesla's done for. The company's over. It's going bust. It's not. That's not to say that it can't, but it's not going away anytime soon. I do think that the earnings call that's coming up at the end of this month, I think it's on April 22nd. I think that's going to be an interesting earnings call.

[00:08:06] It'll be interesting to hear what kind of questions analysts ask and how creative they are to bring up, you know, Elon's involvement in the government or the Tesla protests. Like they have a very, very unique way of asking questions. Analysts do.

[00:08:29] And even though one analyst might ask, let's say, a question on tariffs, a second analyst might ask a question on supply chain, but actually has to do with tariffs. Like they are very creative with how they ask questions. One of the things that I would not be surprised at, and I've mentioned this before, when a company has good news to share, they give analysts a lot of opportunities to ask questions.

[00:08:56] When they do not have good news to share, they give them, you know, 20, maybe 25 minutes. And the rest of the time is either taken up by the CEO's opening remarks or the CFO's opening remarks. And then they'll ask, like Tesla's very good at doing like say.com questions from retail investors. And of course, Tesla's going to cherry pick which questions they want to answer with the say.com.

[00:09:23] And they fill up the hour basically and leave very little time for analysts to ask questions. So that earnings call will actually be interesting. But what I think will be more interesting than that is the Tesla shareholders meeting. Because in the shareholders meeting, shareholders get an opportunity to put forth proposals. And it'll be interesting to see whether or not, or it's not whether or not, or how many proposals there are. I should say it this way.

[00:09:53] It'll be interesting to see how Tesla investors would like to rearrange the board. And then also whether or not they would like Elon to continue being the CEO. So when proposals come out, I think maybe this year, instead of talking about this all during the shareholders meeting, as I see proposals, I might actually just talk about them on the show a little bit as I see them rolling in and how people voted on them.

[00:10:22] So I think it's going to be interesting. But in the realm of is Tesla going away? Not anytime soon. In the realm of does this hurt Tesla? Yes. But it's a flesh wound. It's not a mortal wound. At some point in time, it definitely could be those things. Don't get me wrong.

[00:10:40] But right now, we're looking at a company that is still selling 336,000 or delivering 336,000 vehicles in a quarter where its closest North American competitors that are EV-only companies are delivering handfuls, less than 10,000.

[00:11:02] If you put Rivian's number and Lucid's number together, we have just over 10,000 vehicles delivered. And I think Chevy's doing quite well. I don't know if Chevy's released their numbers yet. But we'll definitely listen to the earnings calls this quarter because there's a lot. There's going to be a lot with the tariffs and things that are going on in the world. It'll be interesting and I think relevant to what we do on this show, do and talk about on this show.

[00:11:31] By the way, I do realize that Tesla sells their vehicles globally, whereas Rivian is just here in North America. And Lucid sells their vehicles here and I think in Saudi Arabia. When I say here in North America, I would assume they sell in Canada as well. So I'm aware that it's not exactly an apples to apples comparison. But other than BYD, Tesla blows everybody out of the water. All right.

[00:12:00] That was 10 minutes of me talking that I thought would take about five minutes. So I'm going to go ahead and stop here and introduce Allison Sheridan. As I said before, Allison came on the show and we discussed what EV she would buy or her and Steve would buy if they had to buy one now. And again, they're not in the market to buy one now. Allison even says that they're very happy with their vehicles currently.

[00:12:26] But if they did have to buy one, what would they consider if it wasn't a Tesla? So I think it's a good conversation. And honestly, I think it's nice to hear how other people are looking. What's important to them when they're buying cars? Like, I think it's interesting to hear what's important to folks, because some of the things that Bart brought up and Allison brought up would never have even entered my mind when buying a car. You know, my thoughts are, does it do cool things?

[00:12:57] And, you know, is the range going to be there? That's really what I'm looking at. Maybe there's some other things subconsciously that I'm looking for. Obviously, I'd like it to look nice and that kind of thing. But I don't the actual I'm just not that complicated is really what it comes down to. My wife would probably disagree with that. But anyway, that's enough of me babbling. Let's let's just go ahead and welcome Allison to the show. Well, nice to chat with you again, Bodhi.

[00:13:23] I heard that you really want to talk about politics and tech on this show, especially if it relates to Tesla. Is that right? I wouldn't. Yeah. No, you're absolutely right. And then while we're at it, let's throw in some other hot button issues. Yeah, there you go. Let's let's cover it all. No, but we are going to talk about EVs. Everybody calm down. We're not going to talk about those things. We're going to talk about EVs. If you want to talk about them, email me. Well, we can chat that way.

[00:13:51] But what do we got today, Allison? Well, there has been some concern about certain car companies. And a group of us were chatting about what alternatives we would look at and whether we would look at them. And Steve and I are lucky in that we are not in the market for new cars right now. I've only got 25,000 miles on my 2019 car. I am literally that little old lady from Pasadena that drives to the market once a week.

[00:14:19] And so we don't need new cars anytime soon. And we both absolutely love our Teslas. But I started a thought experiment with my good friend David Roth on what would I buy if I needed another car? And would I buy a Tesla or would I look at alternatives? And my first answer was, there aren't any good alternatives. Nothing would meet my requirements. And he challenged me and started throwing out some cars I didn't know about.

[00:14:45] And so I made a little spreadsheet where I thought about what are the criteria? What is really important to me? What are the boxes I would need to have checked for a replacement for one of these vehicles? Now, David had an Audi, but now he has... A Cadillac Lyric. That's right, the Lyric. Yeah, yeah. So the thing I looked at was, first of all, my car is in perfect condition. I mean, it looks spectacular and I take really good care of it.

[00:15:13] So my car, we have no complaints with. Steve has the 2020 Model Y. And the suspension is stupid stiff on this thing. I mean, it's really hard to be a passenger in it. I thought he was a terrible driver. And then we stopped driving his car as much and I realized, no, it's just that car because it feels like he's swerving all the time and doing a terrible job. And so I apologize for that, Steve. But so if we were to replace a car, it actually would be the newer car just to get new suspension. Yeah.

[00:15:44] Yeah. Yeah. The new Model Y is supposed to have way better suspension. Yeah. Now, there are some third-party things you can have done to your shocks, but that seems dicey to have third-party mess around. And something as important as that. If Tesla offered a retrofit to the shocks, I would absolutely do it. Me too. So what do you got?

[00:16:06] Well, the hardest part about replacing a car for us is that we believe that cars that are this nice or even bad old cars, whatever, deserve to live inside a garage. We don't like cars to get dirty. We like to keep our cars super clean. I wash and wax my car. I wax Steve's car. He does all the washing of his car. But our garage is really, really shallow. The depth of it is really shallow. So we can't have a car longer than a Model Y fit in our garage.

[00:16:35] So his car is 187 inches. As soon as you set the limit to 187 inches and SUV, a whole lot of cars just disappear from the market. For example, the Honda Prologue is interesting to us. We were Honda owners before we got Teslas. We had never owned anything but a Honda or an Acura. And the Honda Prologue is 192 inches. It literally doesn't matter what other metrics are there about it. You know, it's got wireless car play. Yay, that's great sports. The North American charging standards. That's awesome.

[00:17:05] But I can't fit it in my garage. I literally can't buy that car. So you see where the problem starts? I do. I do. And as I'm looking at your chart, I don't want to steal your thunder. But the most... Never mind. Well, I don't want to steal your thunder. But you have a red line on something that just makes me tickled. But we'll talk about that later. What do you got next? Well, the Kia EV9, boy, that sounds great. 197, 10 inches longer than my garage. Can't fit my garage.

[00:17:32] The BMW iX, beautiful car, 195 inches. Definitely can't fit my garage. The Pulsar 4 starts to get close at 190.5. I mean, there's a possibility we could... There's a couple of little things that stack in front of Steve's car. Maybe we could squeeze a couple inches out of it. But it's got some other problems. Other than that, that eliminated a bunch of those cars. The next thing... I'm not a range anxiety fanatic.

[00:17:59] But I think 300 miles is a reasonable amount of range. So I don't want a car that's got less than 300 miles. And that eliminated almost every one of the other cars in a certain configuration. So what I started learning was, as you look at these different models, you have to choose between a reasonable range and reasonable acceleration. If it's got good acceleration, it's going to have terrible range. So for example... Well, unless you go like with the Mercedes EQE, the range is only 206 miles.

[00:18:29] And it's 0 to 60 in 5.8 seconds. That's nearly double the acceleration of our current cars. That is one problem. I'm not holding it as a drop dead, you've got to be able to accelerate as good as our cars. But it makes the Teslas really, really, really fun to drive. They're so quick off the line. I think it's like 0 to 60 in 3.1 in my car. I think Steve's is a little slower. 3.2, 3.6. But going to 5.8, that would feel like driving a boat anchor to me. I think that would suck all the fun. I was spending probably a lot of money.

[00:18:59] I didn't even look at money, by the way, on these. Oh yeah, because the EQE is way more expensive than a Model Y. Yeah, I did a money is no object and I still can't find a car that meets our metrics. If you look at the Hyundai Ioniq 5, so that fits in the garage at 183. That's nice. That'd be so fun to have four more inches of room in the garage.

[00:19:22] I can either get 318 miles of range with 0 to 60 in 7.4 seconds, which that's terrible. Or I can get the all-wheel drive, which is 290 miles, and then it's 4.4, 0 to 60. 290, I mean, you know, that's close. That's close. That car isn't terrible. That would be a potential option.

[00:19:49] The other criteria I added was they had to have one-pedal driving because next to the acceleration, actually ahead of the acceleration, my favorite thing about driving my car is one-pedal driving. I love it. I freaking love it. I think it is just the most fun thing about it. I use the brakes one to two times a week, maybe, at most, and it just makes it a really fun, relaxing way to drive. And I have found that maybe one-pedal driving isn't one-pedal driving everywhere.

[00:20:17] David Roth says that with his car, he has to push hard on the accelerator to keep it at a constant rate, which I don't. And so I'm not sure one-pedal driving is necessarily good on all cars, but I only looked at cars that had one-pedal driving. Yeah, that is an important feature to me, too. And I don't notice that it's important until I drive an ICE car. Oh, yeah. It's like driving by remote control. It's so delayed. No, you're absolutely correct.

[00:20:46] The other thing that I would, and I don't think you've mentioned it to this point, but the NACS charging standard, we really, like, I don't want to buy a car that's, you know, CCS or J1772 knowing that we're kind of moving out of those standards into NACS going forward. So of these vehicles, it looks like the new IONIQ 5 does have NACS.

[00:21:16] Yeah, so I didn't put that down. I have a column for that, and that is also a drop-dead criteria. It's got to have NACS. So for the fact that we're moving away, but also for the fact that I need it, I'm not going to deal with the CCS charging places. That's just, I've had a little bit of experience with that, and it's awful, and I don't want to do it. But if a car was already eliminated for some other reason, I didn't check to see if it had NACS. So just because it's blank in my spreadsheet doesn't mean that it didn't have it.

[00:21:45] Like the, what was an example? Oh, the BMW iX is 195 inches long. Don't need to know how hot it charges if I can't fit it in my garage. So that one just doesn't have any data. If it's no, like the Mercedes EQE, 206 mile range, and it doesn't have NACS and 0 to 60 and 5.8, there's a winner. At least it's expensive.

[00:22:09] So when I started getting into the range of something that might work, the Kia EV6 looks pretty good, but it's 274 mile range. It's just enough. It's short enough to fit in the garage. It's got one pedal driving. It's got, a wireless CarPlay is oddly a requirement for me, even though I don't have it. If I'm not going to have the Tesla infotainment system, I want the mapping from CarPlay. So the Kia EV6 has wireless CarPlay.

[00:22:39] It has NACS. It's just that range needs to get up at 274. That's just, it's just not enough. Yeah. That is the GT though, the all wheel drive. I don't know what the range for the rear wheel drive, but the 0 to 60 times probably going to be right around the IONIQ 5 times. Yeah. I didn't put all of the options in when I started looking at the IONIQ 5. That's when I realized if I was seeing that.

[00:23:06] But if I'm already getting 0 to 60 at 4.5, I didn't think I needed to go look at the longer range version. I would want all wheel drive, you know? Sure. Not drop dead. The Genesis GV6, I forget if I pointed that one out. That one fits in my garage nicely at 174. It's actually pretty short, but it's ranges to 325 miles. Yeah. And it's not a cheap car. The GV60 is really nice. Have you been inside one?

[00:23:36] No. No. It's a really nice car. Like to the point of if like the base model I might've been able to afford, but I had the same problem. I don't really care about acceleration, but the range, I was like, this isn't for this amount of money. This thing should have like 400 miles of range because I think it starts at 60. Yeah. It's a non-starter. One car that was interesting was the Polestar 4.

[00:24:05] Like I said, it was too long to fit in the garage and the range wasn't quite up there. It was at 270. But the odd thing about the Polestar 4 is it doesn't have a rear window. And I'm actually okay with that because I've seen the electronic rear view mirrors. And to be honest, I don't use my rear view or side view mirrors very much at all. Well, the Tesla rear view mirror is much bigger than the window itself.

[00:24:32] The window is so small that you've got this little floating hole out the back of your car inside this big rear view mirror. I would much rather have an electronic rear view mirror that was looking at the cameras. So when I go into reverse, I am only looking, I'm looking at the two side cameras and the back camera, and I've got full visibility. I've sat there and watched people walk to make sure I can see them in two cameras at a time. So I know I don't have any blind spot there. It's much, much better.

[00:24:59] And so I'm not against having not a rear window, but we have a dog and I want him to be able to look out the back window. I mean, that's why we have an SUV is for the dog. So if the dog can't see out the window, that seems kind of mean. Yeah. You have a new dog too. We do. Kepler. Kepler. So that eliminated, you know, the Polestar again, 270 miles. That's still, well, and too long to fit in the garage. Other than that, it was perfect.

[00:25:25] When I was all done with this, the only car that came close, and I would say really close, is the Mustang Mach-E Premium. It's 185.6 inches long. So I've got, I'd get a little bit more space in the garage. It's got one pedal driving, 320 miles of range, 0 to 60 and 4.1, which is quite respectable. It's got wireless CarPlay and it's got the NACS charging standard.

[00:25:52] And the thing that made me laugh and I wanted to say earlier was you didn't like the 4.1, 0 to 60 time, which is still really good. I'm 3.8, so I'm still a little bit fast. No. Am I 3.8? I think I'm 3.8. Isn't that? Maybe it's 4.8. Anyway, my car is plenty fast, but 4.1 made me giggle. I mean, when you're coming from performance. I did conditional formatting and let me see, what was my conditional formatting was if

[00:26:21] it was, oh, hang on. Let's see. Less than three, more than 3.9 was what I set it at. So 4.1, that's pretty close. I would live with that. Terrible, you know, 30% slower. Yeah. Okay. Okay. As long as it wasn't like a conscious decision. I think it's 4.1 to 4.8. So I think I'm 4.8 seconds on my car. So it's still faster than my car. Yeah. I think I probably wouldn't notice that.

[00:26:50] I have pushed the accelerator to the floor quite a few times just to bother people in my car, to make them scream like little girls. I think I've told this story before. I did it twice in one drive one day and I had a headache for the rest of the day. So I don't do that anymore because I don't want all those micro concussions. Yeah. Yeah. So it seems like you chose vehicles. My Tesla Cybertruck just fell off the desk. It seems like the vehicles that you chose are all out now.

[00:27:20] Now, Pat Dangler really likes the R2 series, the Rivian R2. And it's 185.6 inches long, but it doesn't have CarPlay. And it's also not available. No, it will be available. But you're right. It's not available right this second. But would that be something you look at? No, no, it will be available. I know it will be and is mean and it isn't. This was at this instant in time of the cars I can actually get today if I had to replace my car, which I don't.

[00:27:50] We're probably looking at it a couple of years away when there'll be a lot more options. But like I said, it was a thought experiment. Yeah. No, it's a good thought experiment for sure. Yeah. Yeah. She has done a lot of research into a lot of cars and spent time looking at them going to shows and stuff and seeing what she liked. The only car on this entire list that I've actually sat in is the Mustang Mach-E Premium because my friend Diane just bought one. And it's not expensive compared to the Model Y. It's a beautiful car.

[00:28:20] I only drove it a little bit, but it was nice. Yeah. No, it's super nice. I would consider it. Super nice. Well, Allison, if the R2 was out, I'm still going to go on this question. I'm going to bang on this question to answer it. If the R2 was out, would it be something you'd consider? Because we're talking like $45,000, $48,000 for the R2. Well, you just told me it doesn't have wireless CarPlay, so it would get a no. It would get a hard no. Well, yeah.

[00:28:48] I'm not going to have some other... I have experienced both now a lot, and I've made a lot of fun of CarPlay because the Tesla experience is pretty good, but it is nicer to have it on CarPlay. I do think that's a little bit better. We've gotten into kind of the best of both worlds now. You recommended the Jawa. It's not MagSafe. It's a magnetic thing.

[00:29:15] You stick to the back of your Tesla screen, and then it really nicely hides the cable, the wire down to make that be a charger. So it is a... I don't know if it's G2 or not, but anyway, it's definitely a magnetic charger. And so now what we do, if we're going on a real trip, we set the navigation on the Tesla and on the iPhone in Apple Maps. And we play our podcasts from the iPhone, and we let the audio for the navigation come

[00:29:42] out of the phone, but we also have it running on the Tesla because we've got this giant, beautiful screen. So the Tesla navigation gives you much better situational awareness than the phone does or even CarPlay because even with CarPlay, you can't see that far ahead like you can in the Tesla. So we do the best of both worlds. And sometimes maybe they pick a little bit of a different direction, but we just follow the one that the phone is saying. And the nice thing is now our podcast duck while the navigation is talking.

[00:30:11] So we get kind of... That's our combination of the best of both worlds. Yeah, I do something similar when I take road trips for sure. Yeah. So it's a good way to go. All right. So where would people find you, Allison? Well, everything good starts with podfeet.com. That's where you can find my podcast, The No Silicast, which is the longest running Apple-centric podcast coming up on 20 years in May.

[00:30:39] And I think I made you congratulate me already a recent time we were chatting. But... Yes, I felt weird about doing it again. Congratulations. You should do it every time you talk to me. Very proud of it. Okay. Congratulations on 20 years of No Silicast. We also have Chit Chat Across the Pond, where I talk to interesting people in tech and programming by stealth with Barboos Shots, which is a programming podcast that's an audio show, but works surprisingly well. And there's an In the Can podcast called Taming the Terminal.

[00:31:07] It's a 43-part series that's kind of wrapped in a bow, and that's actually getting attention. We just got some fan mail a couple days ago from somebody who just found it. So if you wanted to learn how to use the terminal on the Mac, and actually a lot of stuff you can do on Linux and Windows as well. It's a great show. Excellent. Excellent. And I will throw... My favorite part of your podcast is when you and Bart do security bits, so we'll throw security bits in there, which is on the No Silicast show. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:31:35] I'm pretty sure people use my chapter marks just to skip to when Bart starts talking. I don't do that. I listen to everything. Well, Allison, thank you so much for coming on and sharing this with us. All right. It was a lot of fun. All right. I want to thank Allison for coming on to a very modified pod feet week here at the Kilowatt Podcast. Again, this episode was supposed to go out on Friday, and I started recording this on Sunday

[00:32:05] at 3 p.m., and it's now Sunday at 10 p.m., so you can kind of get an idea as to how my day is going. It's pretty busy. Anyway, that's not all for Allison, though. We do have some other content from Allison, because as I said, she was at CES, and she got some content that she is passing along to us. So the first thing we're going to hear about is a service called Plug P2P, and I'll let

[00:32:35] Allison explain what that is. We're big fans of electric vehicles, and we really believe in being able to charge anywhere. And one of the problems to be solved is, what if you're, I don't know, going to a ball game or something like that, and you need to charge, but you also need to park? And it's possible that Plug P2P might have the answer to this. So I'm talking to Ann Campbell, the founder of Plug P2P, and she's going to tell us all about their idea of how this can be solved. Yes. Okay, great. Thank you for stopping by.

[00:33:03] Plug P2P is a mobile app that helps connect people who own an EV charging device. And it could be an electrical outlet, because most people have a mobile charger, or it can be an actual Tesla charger or a J1772 charger. So we connect people who own those charging devices. They use them a couple times a week. They just sit there unused most of the time. There are over 4 million of them in the U.S. today. And we want to sort of create a marketplace so that people who have a charger and people

[00:33:33] who need a charger can find each other. And, you know, we think this is going to be really helpful to people who drive EVs because they charge at home most of the time. But sometimes, you know, they could be visiting someone. They could be going to a game somewhere. They might be spending the afternoon at the park at a soccer game. And it would be nice if they could just kind of park across the street or down the street or around the block and let their vehicle charge while they're sitting there watching that football game for four hours. And everybody wins, you know. So wait a minute.

[00:34:02] We're all larcenists. So we want the money. So I've got a Tesla charger in my garage. And I'm a nice person. But I pay 52 cents a kilowatt hour during the peak time and 26 during the off time. So I'm going to want some compensation. What's your idea there? So you set your calendar. You set your price. You get to decide the host is in full control of the situation.

[00:34:29] When someone wants to come to your house to charge, you can decide to accept or decline that charge event. And they know what your calendar is. They know how much you charge. And you're going to charge. Market discovery is something that we enable. So if you can charge 20 bucks an hour during that football game that's right around the corner from your house, you're going to do that. And you should do that. And guess what? Because they're also parking their car, aren't they? Absolutely. So it's a win-win for everybody.

[00:34:54] And our app will allow you to kind of discover what people are willing to pay. And you should be compensated because you're sharing your property. You're giving them an electric charge. So there's really a win-win benefit all around by using our app. So plugp2p.com. Check it out. That's really perfect. You're ready to wind this up. And I've still got more excitement about this. So I like the idea that I get to set the charging.

[00:35:22] So if it's a children's soccer game across the street, I might get a buck an hour. But if it's the—I'm at SoFi Stadium. I'm down the block there. I'm going to get banked for that because I'm not allowing them to park and charge their electric vehicle at the same time. That's right. And if you're at a highway exit ramp, you might get 20 bucks an hour. Whereas, you know, on Memorial Day weekend, if somebody really needs to charge, it could be an electrical outlet. You don't even have to own an EV charger.

[00:35:50] So you as a host, you know, there are people who drive EVs that have mobile chargers that plug into a regular electrical outlet. You just need to have it checked by an electrician, make sure it's safe. And we do ask you those questions. And so we just want it to be a really positive, outstanding experience for everybody. That's interesting. So you're only going to get maybe five or six miles per hour of charge on a 110 outlet. But if they also get parking during an event like that, that's worth money. That's interesting.

[00:36:19] So I might not even be somebody owns an electric vehicle, doesn't even have a charger, but I've got an outlet or maybe I've got a dryer outlet. Maybe they've got the charger. So some things like that. So you've built the infrastructure for all of this math to be done. So I don't have to worry my pretty little head about how to do it. But all I do is set the charge. That's right. That's right. You just you tell us what I said. Charge. Charge. I meant money. That's right. You decide your schedule, you decide how much you want to charge and you put it out there.

[00:36:45] It's like you're selling something on, you know, eBay or Airbnb or Uber. You know, this is what I have to offer. This is what I want to charge. And then you find matches like guests will be able to find you if you have what they need. And the beauty of a marketplace is it allows buyers and sellers to find each other and negotiate a price. Oh, very good. And so if you set your your price at $50 an hour, you get no customers. You know that if I want to be in this business, I got to drop my price. Some weekends you might be able to get $50 an hour.

[00:37:15] Some weekends it might be two or five or three, whatever it is. You'll find out. I love this. So the site is PlugP2P.com, PeerToPeer.com. And but I'm sorry, is this already available today? So we're launching in the next couple of months. We've been working on the software for about a year now. We're putting the final bells and whistles on it. We want it to be a really amazing user experience. And we think everybody's going to love it when we get it out there.

[00:37:42] So it'll be downloadable in the Apple Store and the Android Play Store. It's for iOS and Android. So look for it in a couple of months. But you can go to PlugP2P.com to get us your email. We'll let you know when it's going to be launched so we can keep you in the loop. You can sign up and you can either be a charge guest, a charge host. You can be both. And, you know, we're just going to create this awesome ecosystem so that people can find

[00:38:11] each other and start EV charging and solve this big problem that the whole society is dealing with. This is fantastic. And I expect a personal phone call when this all goes live. But this is great. One more time. I'm going to PlugP2P.com. You'll learn all about it. You can email us. We'll answer any questions. Give us your email and we'll keep you posted when we go live. Perfect. Thank you. Right. Thank you. Would you use a service like ClubP2P?

[00:38:41] I don't know that I would find, I personally would find much use in it. However, I will say that a week or two ago, I went to the comedy show and it was Jerry Seinfeld, Jim Gaffigan and Tom Papa. And there was like, it was at the arena where the Suns play. I don't know. I can't remember what it's called right off the top of my head. But the Suns, you know, it's a big arena, 13,000, 14,000 people. And it was pretty full.

[00:39:11] And my father-in-law and I went and we had to park a little more than half a mile away. And we parked in a parking lot that, if I'm being honest, did not seem like we should be parking there. Like we paid for the parking when we got the tickets. So we were definitely allowed to park there, but it didn't seem like it would be, it was a place that we should park.

[00:39:39] Like I was kind of concerned because the concert was going to get out kind of late. I was a little concerned that the gates would be closed before we were able to get our car out. But, you know, everything worked out fine. But we had to, you know, walk, you know, a little more than half of a mile after the concert. It was kind of late. But downtown Phoenix is honestly not a scary place. So it wasn't an issue walking back to our car other than it was a little bit far.

[00:40:07] It was really more of the convenience of being able to park. So if I was able to park somewhere closer and charge my car at the same time, that would have been a real benefit for me. So, yeah, just interested. Would that be something that you would consider? Or would you consider opening up your house for people to come in and charge? Um, I live in the suburbs and there's really nothing around me that's interesting. So I don't know why anybody would want.

[00:40:34] And there's a, like a supercharger network just south of my house. So I don't know why anybody would want to, um, come to my house and charge. But, uh, yeah. Would you, would you use the service or would you open up your house, uh, if you live close to a venue to people who wanted to use the service? Email me, Bodie, B-O-D-I-E at 918digital.com. Now we have one more interview here from Allison.

[00:41:04] And it's, you know, it's interesting that we're using the word here because Allison interviewed the folks from HERE. What is HERE? Well, stay tuned to find out. I'm sitting in the Lotus Electra Carbon with Salmya Gopal from HERE Technologies, who is going to talk to us about the integration of their platform with Lotus and some other vehicles, I think. Welcome to the show here. Thank you, Allison.

[00:41:31] So Lotus wanted to have this sports electric car launched in the U.S. And it's already been launched in Europe. And I think here the driver needs the pleasure of driving a sports car without having to worry about the range anxiety that usually comes with an electric car. That's what you want a Lotus for is the fun, right? Yes. And this means that you just floor the car and go wherever you want to go without having to worry about where should I stop for charging? How long should I charge? Because the system takes care of everything.

[00:42:00] And this is what we did for the Lotus in integrating the navigation experience fully with range management. So basically what happens is we read the data, the battery data that is displayed here. So for example, it says the charge level is 82%. And this means it can exactly tell you how far you can get with such a charge level. And this here shows the range map of where you can get with this charge level. Oh, wow.

[00:42:29] I'm going to tell some of the audience, it won't be able to see this, but we've got yellow on the map showing where the car can go. And you can see where you can't go yet. And this also means that if I try to go to a long distance location, so I'm going to put in Chicago now just for the fun of it. And going from Vegas to Chicago in a Lotus is going to be a lot of fun. But it also means you have to add automatically charging stops when you get from Vegas to Chicago without the driver having to worry about where should I stop.

[00:42:59] So the system takes care of everything because here has a comprehensive navigation solution that takes into account. In 400 feet, turn left onto Convention Center Drive. Now turn left. So now she's going to, I think she's going to end the trip. Are you showing us how many steps? Use the left lane and turn left onto Paradise Drive. It's adding charging stops because basically it says you're going to cross time zones because you're going to cross state boundaries.

[00:43:28] And it has also added all of these charging stops, which tells you how many minutes you have to charge on your way to Chicago. And in every case, you can actually edit the stops to see if you want to have a coffee break or a lunch so that the driver really only has to worry about where he or she wants to take a break and how they want to enjoy the drive without thinking about whether my charging is compatible with the charging station, whether my car is going to be charged enough.

[00:43:55] All of that is taken care of by the solution that here and Lotus is implemented together. So with here, then that means that you not only have mapping data, you also have data about where all the charging spots are for the different levels of chargers from all of the plethora of different companies we unfortunately have to deal with right now. Now, does it give you any kind of data on when you're arriving or when you're getting close to needing to charge to tell you whether there are enough ports open for you? Yes. We also have the availability information.

[00:44:23] So it will give you a list of, it will only choose available points. And if there are no available points, it will also tell you how many ports are available. And if it is not available, you have to get there and wait because that's the infrastructure. But this availability information is also available and will be displayed as red, green in the map, which shows what is available and what isn't. Okay. That's really cool. Range anxiety is such a funny thing because it's real. It does happen.

[00:44:52] But once you get the hang of it, it's really not all that hard. Because you start to find out you don't stop as long. You take a couple of stops, but you make them shorter, much more efficient. It's good to stretch your legs anyway. Indeed. I have an electric vehicle myself. And I think the biggest problem for me is exactly what you said. If I get to a charging station and it's not available because that's when the anxiety starts. As long as I'm able to charge my car, then I do like a break. You know, coffee, restroom, lunch, shopping.

[00:45:21] And this is why the availability information is critical. And this is why also being able to adapt the route is critical. For example, if I'm driving faster because I can on the highway or if I'm stuck in traffic, which means I'm consuming more charge in stop and go, then the route has to adapt itself and add a charging point earlier. All of this is done dynamically by the system. That's really cool.

[00:45:44] Now, I've also seen that your mapping system does some interesting things while you're driving in terms of the display and some predictive technologies. Indeed. So we have what we call predictive search and predictive routing. So, for example, if you drive every morning at 8 a.m. to the office, when you get in the car at 8 a.m., it will automatically propose, hey, do you want to go to the office? Because this is learning from the consumer behavior.

[00:46:09] And additionally, we also have an AI-powered stack so that in the future you can have completely voice-based interactions with the car. You can simply ask the car, hey, I want to go there without having to even touch the screen because this will avoid driver distraction. If you're constantly touching the screen while driving, especially when you're speeding down the highway, that's not always a safe thing to do. Right, right. Now, is any of the HEAR technology working towards automated driving? Yes, we already have two L3 solutions out there.

[00:46:40] In fact, the only two L3 solutions out there are powered by HEAR maps. You will see an example of BMW there also in the booth. And we also have Daimler or Mercedes that is doing an L3 solution based on HEAR maps. Lotus is working on adding some of the ADAS functionality in the future. But as a Lotus driver, my pleasure comes from driving the car myself rather than the car driving itself. So that's really important to know your audience, right?

[00:47:07] So you're sitting in a big fat BMW 7 Series. You want to relax, right? But here you're playing with the car. Yes. So that's why for us it's critical that the OEM makes this decision. So we have the technology stack to support navigation and automated driving. And we leave the choice to the OEM as to what stack they would like to implement in the car. That is really, really interesting. If people wanted to learn more about HEAR, where would they go? So we have, here we go, apps on the App Store or they can go to HEAR.com website.

[00:47:37] Very good. Thank you very much. This was fascinating. I didn't know any of this before you started. Thank you, Alison. All right. So I think this kind of technology is interesting, right? I honestly think that car manufacturers would rather control this and not go through third parties for this type of thing. One of the questions that I would have asked is, are they integrated with the ADAS system?

[00:48:05] Or are they the whole stack of the ADAS system? I'm guessing they're just integrated and they're just the MAPS function. I would guess that they're not running the whole ADAS system from here. Now, I could be wrong, but it seems like that's how that kind of played out. But yeah, I think companies will eventually want to own this themselves.

[00:48:32] But until they can get to that point, obviously, you're going to need a third party solution. I do think at some point in time, somebody will snap here up and, you know, maybe they'll leave it open for third parties to use. But more likely, they'll just keep it for themselves. If I had to guess. What are your thoughts? Email me, Bodie, B-O-D-I-E at 918digital.com.

[00:49:01] Normal show on Tuesday, normal show on Friday. We'll get back to the news. Looking forward to chatting with everybody. Letting you know what I've been up to. I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. And yeah, so you're getting an episode on Sunday night. And then you'll get an episode as well on Tuesday. So thank you, everybody, for listening. Looking forward to chatting more on Tuesday.